Day two of our jouney (Sunday, March 13th)

I am still having issues with figuring out how to use my blog. Most of the problems are with inserting photos. I am not sure if it will let me post multiple pictures in one blog, so if you see any pictures that do not look like they are in the right spot or the tops of people’s heads are (auto) cropped by my blog program, please do not be surprised. I will keep working on it.

So our last post finished off with our arrival in Kiev. After getting loaded into our minivan, we drove from the airport into Kiev (20 – 30 minutes). There were no seat belts in the van. The driver was very nice and Natasha was her usual cheerful self.

Our first stop was at the grocery store. I was really hoping for a good produce section. No such luck. All we saw were apples, lemons, tangerines, garlic, and I think that was about it. We bagged up some tangerines and a couple of lemons. Tony bagged up a few apples even though I had heard that they usually do not taste very good at this time of the year. We haven’t eaten any yet. Natasha told us that the produce lady (the one that stands at the scales to weigh our produce)said they had not received their “comings.” I questioned Natasha on that word. We discovered it means delivery. We purchased some bread, cheese, salami, eggs, some kind of hot sauce to have with the eggs, fruit and tomato juice, butter, and water. I brought a couple of nice shopping bags from home, so we had something to put our groceries in. We loaded up and headed on our way.

Natasha told us a bit about Kiev on our drive in. We saw the Motherland Statue that was erected in 1980. It is twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty. Our apartment is near Liberty Square off of St. Michael’s Street. There were women just leaving the place as we were coming in. We are not sure if this is someone’s home that they moved out of so that we can stay here. We will be staying here two nights at $80 per night, so we paid the lady in advance. It is a nice place. It is old, but it feels clean and is comfortable. I will try to attach some photos. The boys are sleeping on a bed up in the loft that has some windows looking down into the kitchen. The loft also has a low ceiling. Gabe is the only one that doesn’t have to hunch over to walk around up there. Gabe seems pretty happy with his accommodations. Our room is also very comfortable. We have a family room with a VERY old upright piano that is quite out of tune so much so that nobody will hardly play it.

We were all very tired when we arrived, so at 4:00 we crashed and took a 3 hour nap. Tony and I woke up at 7:00 and decided to wake the boys up so that we would be able to sleep through the night. We called one of the other adopting families and they were headed to a small restaurant with two other families. We asked if we could join them. We called another family, so we all met just around the corner from our apartment. Tony ordered Borsch, I had a delicious Greek salad with very creamy, yummy feta cheese, Sam had chicken Kiev, and Gabe had an omlette. We enjoyed it all very much. After chatting with everyone for a bit longer, our family headed back to our apartment. We did not get to sleep until very late, but since our bodies are so wacked in regards to what time it is, it was not a problem. We all slept great.

Comments

Anne! Great post!
(FYI I didn’t see any pictures, it’s very tricky to figure computer stuff out over there isn’t it? I can’t help you as I used a blogspot account not a wordpress.)
How fun to have so many families there together. I feel like I’m missing the party!
Can’t wait to follow your journey/adventure!!
Love,
Wendy

Anne-I love reading about all the goings on! I hope your appointment went well today (at least I think you’ve had it). How are your boys enjoying the trip so far? We have talked casually about bringing one of our kids with us, so I’m interested to know how they do. The no seat belt thing is a little crazy… We’ll pray for your safety as well as your success:) Take care!

There are generally not seat-belts in taxi’s over there. In the case that there are, BEWARE! If you put them on you will most likely offend the driver because he’ll think that you don’t trust him as a driver or that you think he’s a bad driver. It’s just the way it is so I’d recommend going with it